Browsing Posts published on January 14, 2013

In every population of organisms a certain percentage develop abnormalities for various reasons. Some of these abnormalities occur during the animal’s lifetime as a result of an encounter with a predator or a disease, or as a result of the choices the animal makes in its lifetime.

Other abnormalities occur during the animal’s development within the egg or the womb. Some abnormalities that occur during development produce deformed individuals. They can be caused by a variety of factors, including temperature, the mother’s nutrition, genetic recombination, and environmental pollutants; however, across all species deformities are uncommon.

Nevertheless, in some groups of animals, large numbers of individuals with deformities have emerged in recent decades. For decades, scientists and environmentalists have been interested in crossed-bill syndrome—a condition that occurs in some birds in which the upper and lower halves of the bill cannot close properly due to significant deformities. The interest stems in part from the stark changes in a bird’s appearance that are characteristic of the syndrome. Such changes can result in restrictions on how the animal obtains and eats food, and they may also affect how that individual interacts with other members of its species. As crossed bills and other beak deformities occur in a greater share of a bird population or across different species, scientists grow concerned that a change in the environment may be underway. continue reading…

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.